Paranoid Jack wrote on Dec 16, 2013, 00:52:I hope Wasteland 2 is on this list for a long while. Loving the beta and couldn't be happier with KickStarting this one.

One word of warning do not create a custom character portrait nor use them in game until they fix the bug. When you reload the save game your custom character portraits may all go white or light blue. At that point there is a chance that it has caused your save game to break... and you will lose all progress. Not being able to load any of the saved games after that point.

It is a beta... although badass... still a beta, go figure.

There's a temp fix where you can open the saved game file with notepad and type back in the correct portrait name for your character.

Search your char's name then look for:<portraitName>CustomPortraitFilename</portraitName>where "CustomPortraitFileName is blank. Type in the file name without the png extension and save.

There's another temp fix for when the game crashes to desktop while loading a save. Quickly start a new game and skip through the starting dialogue by repeatedly selecting "Goodbye". Hit escape and Load your original game. This was the only way I could complete the Rail Nomad area.

Prez wrote on Dec 15, 2013, 20:01:If I'm to get 50 or 60 hours gameplay (or more) out of a game - as I expect I will with Wastelands 2 - $60 is nothing to me. It's the 5 hour throwaway single player games like Call of Duty that I won't pay that much for. That's just a waste. It is extremely doubtful that 60 bucks will be the release price anyway. Look at Planetary Annihilation - in alpha it cost $90, in beta it's costing $60, and the release price is going to be at least 10 bucks less than that according to the devs.

Agreed, I have no problem paying more for quality games with a lot of replay value.

No, obviously I understand why they're charging more for the beta access. They have to match it to what it cost in the Kickstarter.

It's just that once the game is complete, I don't think it'd be wise to try to sell (most of) the Kickstarted games for $60. Again, they have already made back most, if not all, of their money. What they need now is to try to get people interested in their games so that those people will hopefully support next time.

You don't do that by trying to sell a budget game (which, let's be honest, is what the large majority of Kickstarted games are) for $60.

Let's leave the greed to the idiot publishers, and let's try to get more people interested in non-AAA development.

This makes sense but the only way for the developer to do that (without pissing off the early backers) is to keep the game off Steam Early access.I would like to see all those bitch and complain about the price in the Steam forum how would they feel if they pay $60 for a game on kickstarter to gain access to the beta then when the game gets a Steam Early access release devs would charge $40 for the game and beta access.

There are other games that went the other way and charged very little for the early access then ramped up the price for release, but people were still bitch and complain about the price of the Alpha.

I do not think there is a way to keep everyone happy so just let the complainers complain and carry on I guess.

Paranoid Jack wrote on Dec 16, 2013, 00:52:I hope Wasteland 2 is on this list for a long while. Loving the beta and couldn't be happier with KickStarting this one.

One word of warning do not create a custom character portrait nor use them in game until they fix the bug. When you reload the save game your custom character portraits may all go white or light blue. At that point there is a chance that it has caused your save game to break... and you will lose all progress. Not being able to load any of the saved games after that point.

It is a beta... although badass... still a beta, go figure.

There's a temp fix where you can open the saved game file with notepad and type back in the correct portrait name for your character.

Search your char's name then look for:<portraitName>CustomPortraitFilename</portraitName>where "CustomPortraitFileName is blank. Type in the file name without the png extension and save.

There's another temp fix for when the game crashes to desktop while loading a save. Quickly start a new game and skip through the starting dialogue by repeatedly selecting "Goodbye". Hit escape and Load your original game. This was the only way I could complete the Rail Nomad area.

Jerykk wrote on Dec 16, 2013, 01:05:Ideally, Wasteland 2 will be profitable enough for inXile to fund future games without resorting to Kickstarter. Kickstarting a game is very much like pitching a game to a publisher, only instead of trying to convince suits, you're trying to convince gamers. Either way, you're still wasting a lot of time and resources trying to convince people to give you money. If Wasteland 2 is profitable enough, they won't have to do that anymore. It's not about greed. It's about creative freedom and self-sustainability.

I don't know it could be used as a good measuring stick to gauge feedback on ideas, also cash at the outset is never going to hurt and i dare say the avg amount they receive per kickstarter is higher than retail.

I guess it could backfire as well -- listening to the community to much is just as bad as ignoring it outright.

I'm keen to see what happens in the next few years with kickstarter - would really love it to go a bit more mainstream with some projects just to see if they can deliver budgets in the 50mil+ range and really threaten publishers.

jacobvandy wrote on Dec 15, 2013, 21:30:Nope... How many times must it be explained that these Top 10 lists are based on weekly revenue flowing through Steam?

Probably about once for everyone who visits the comments of a "Steam Top 10" post here, then wonders how it all works. I certainly can't see it documented anywhere except in forum footnotes, and that's for Valve's "Top Sellers" list and may not be exactly the same as whichever report Blue is looking at.

It says right at the top of the news feed. http://store.steampowered.com/feeds/weeklytopsellers.xml

No, obviously I understand why they're charging more for the beta access. They have to match it to what it cost in the Kickstarter.

It's just that once the game is complete, I don't think it'd be wise to try to sell (most of) the Kickstarted games for $60. Again, they have already made back most, if not all, of their money. What they need now is to try to get people interested in their games so that those people will hopefully support next time.

You don't do that by trying to sell a budget game (which, let's be honest, is what the large majority of Kickstarted games are) for $60.

Let's leave the greed to the idiot publishers, and let's try to get more people interested in non-AAA development.

Ideally, Wasteland 2 will be profitable enough for inXile to fund future games without resorting to Kickstarter. Kickstarting a game is very much like pitching a game to a publisher, only instead of trying to convince suits, you're trying to convince gamers. Either way, you're still wasting a lot of time and resources trying to convince people to give you money. If Wasteland 2 is profitable enough, they won't have to do that anymore. It's not about greed. It's about creative freedom and self-sustainability.

I hope Wasteland 2 is on this list for a long while. Loving the beta and couldn't be happier with KickStarting this one.

One word of warning do not create a custom character portrait nor use them in game until they fix the bug. When you reload the save game your custom character portraits may all go white or light blue. At that point there is a chance that it has caused your save game to break... and you will lose all progress. Not being able to load any of the saved games after that point.

No, obviously I understand why they're charging more for the beta access. They have to match it to what it cost in the Kickstarter.

It's just that once the game is complete, I don't think it'd be wise to try to sell (most of) the Kickstarted games for $60. Again, they have already made back most, if not all, of their money. What they need now is to try to get people interested in their games so that those people will hopefully support next time.

You don't do that by trying to sell a budget game (which, let's be honest, is what the large majority of Kickstarted games are) for $60.

Let's leave the greed to the idiot publishers, and let's try to get more people interested in non-AAA development.

jacobvandy wrote on Dec 15, 2013, 21:30:Nope... How many times must it be explained that these Top 10 lists are based on weekly revenue flowing through Steam?

Probably about once for everyone who visits the comments of a "Steam Top 10" post here, then wonders how it all works. I certainly can't see it documented anywhere except in forum footnotes, and that's for Valve's "Top Sellers" list and may not be exactly the same as whichever report Blue is looking at.

Domgrief wrote on Dec 15, 2013, 21:02:If backers got steam keys to play the beta, maybe Valve's report shows all key registrations/activations, and not just transactions through the Steam storefront.

Though if that was true, there'd be a spike every time a steam-key-in-a-box AAA title (activision, zenimax, etc.) was released to brick-and-mortar stores.

Nope... How many times must it be explained that these Top 10 lists are based on weekly revenue flowing through Steam? They saw no revenue from keys handed out to people that pledged to a Kickstarter or paid directly via PayPal and saw fulfillment from Humble Bundle. These are all purchases made this week, on Steam.

Don't ask how or why that works, developers getting Steam keys in bulk for their game they sold elsewhere. I don't know. Maybe it's negotiated as a couple extra points for Valve on their Steam contract, or maybe it's included as a service for everyone who publishes there. Either way, it doesn't mesh with the tracking of total revenue, i.e. what people paid at check-out (such as $59.99 for Wasteland 2 early access).

Making a profit on it means they can maybe fund development of another game without doing a KS, or at least without needing to fund the whole thing through KS. Maybe they can get a good chunk of it done ahead and have something to show when they ask for more funding.

If I'm to get 50 or 60 hours gameplay (or more) out of a game - as I expect I will with Wastelands 2 - $60 is nothing to me. It's the 5 hour throwaway single player games like Call of Duty that I won't pay that much for. That's just a waste. It is extremely doubtful that 60 bucks will be the release price anyway. Look at Planetary Annihilation - in alpha it cost $90, in beta it's costing $60, and the release price is going to be at least 10 bucks less than that according to the devs.

This comment was edited on Dec 15, 2013, 20:08.

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